Emotion – needed in Business?

I recently watched “Pirate Radio” (AKA Boat That Rocked) again. A good fun movie that tells the story of a pirate radio station off the coast of England in the 1960s. If you’ve seen it you’ll notice that they all seem to be having great fun, and that made me think about being in business – and having fun.

Many people will tell you to keep emotion out of your business. They are nearly right.

There is a serious side, and that is to deliver the quality and quantity that your client’s expect, and to require an appropriate reward for that. Keep good records and measure what is going on inside your business.

The thing is though that you must be as passionate about your business as the Pirate Radio guys were about theirs. Being in business can mean long hours, at least to start with, and it can mean being away from home for extended periods, and all sorts of lifestyle concessions, so if you don’t enjoy it then it will feel like really hard work.

And you can’t hide that from your clients! You have probably experienced being served in an off-hand way, and decided not to do business with that store again? Your clients are just as good at figuring out if you care about your business, and if you don’t care about your business then they figure you probably don’t care about them.

If you are passionate about what you do for a living your clients will know, and that will rub off on them! There will be a mysterious ‘X’ factor about your business that competitors will not be able to mimic.

Another way to look at it is: you are likely to be earning a living for a long time, it might as well be doing something you like! If not it will seem like a very long time indeed.